In-Home Moving in Vancouver

Moving between rooms and floors

This is one of the more useful things we do and one of the least thought of. Rearranging a room that needs two people, shifting a bedroom to another floor, or emptying a room before flooring or painting and putting it back afterwards.

The last of those is worth booking as two visits — out before the trades start, back once the work is done and cured. Trying to work around furniture stacked in the middle of a room is slower and produces a worse result than an empty room, which is why we would rather move it twice.

Pianos, safes and heavy items

We are honest about our limits here. An upright piano on one level, with enough people and proper equipment, is a job we can take. A grand piano, or any piano going up or down a staircase, belongs with specialist piano movers who have the right equipment and the insurance for it.

The same applies to gun safes and anything comparably heavy on stairs. These are the jobs where getting it wrong injures somebody or destroys the object and the staircase together. Where a job is outside what we should attempt, we say so and point you to who should do it, rather than trying and finding out halfway up.

Tight stairs and corners

Measure the object and the tightest point of the route, and remember the diagonal is what matters — a sofa that will not fit through a doorway flat will often go through turned on its side or with the back legs removed.

Doors coming off their hinges buys a surprising amount of clearance and takes two minutes. Half-landings are the real constraint, since the item must rotate within the space available. We assess the route before starting rather than getting something wedged in the worst possible place.

Disassembly and reassembly

Bed frames, large dining tables, modular sofas and wardrobes often have to come apart. That is straightforward on anything designed to be dismantled and riskier on flat-pack, where cam fittings and chipboard have a limited number of assembly cycles in them.

Fixings go in a labelled bag taped to the item, and we photograph anything with a complicated order before it comes apart. If a piece is flat-pack and already loose, we will tell you before dismantling — sometimes the honest answer is that it will not survive the trip and is better replaced than moved.

What this costs

$190/hr for two movers · three-hour minimum

Labour only — we do not supply a truck. In-home moves, loading and unloading are all charged the same way, with floor and doorway protection included.

Materials are always separate from labour and passed on at cost. Quotes are free and written, and the full rate card is published rather than given out on request.